According to Osho, there’s no exit through the head: intellect is a cul-de-sac that loops in concepts. The way out is through the heart—openness, love, and communion. Don’t discard the mind; dethrone it. Let reason serve life and love, not rule them. When the head becomes the heart’s instrument, communication, sanity, and true intelligence arise—and a path beyond confusion appears.
You can’t think your way free—open your heart, be loving, and let your mind help instead of bossing you around.
From the Discourses
Passages where Osho speaks to this question — each links to the complete discourse.
Question: BELOVED OSHO, DOES REASON OR INTELLECT HAVE ANY PLACE AT ALL IN SADHANA? It is easy to love a country, to love humanity, to love the nation, to love Christianity, to love Islam, to love Hinduism. It is very difficult to love a real person, very difficult, because for the real person the heart will be needed. And these concepts, abstract concepts -- humanity, Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, or even God -- the head can work with, there is no problem, because only thinking is implied, no lived experience is needed. You are not asked to get involved in anything where your heart will be required: just concepts, just logic, mathematics. The head can do that. Science is head work: religion is heart work. You can use your reason only to destroy reason, to help reason to commit suicide. My whole effort is to persuade you to become headless.
“But Osho, to me your talks seem very, very logical.”
They are logical. My whole effort is that what I say to you be logical—so that you agree to walk with me. Once you agree, then into the ditch we go; then I’ll take you off your tracks! Just consent once, let our hands meet once—then there’s nothing to worry about. Once your hand is in my hand, you won’t keep it outside for long. First I catch the fingers, then the wrist, and then… the person is gone! So I make the first connection through logic, because that’s where you live; only from there can connection happen—there is where you are. This is why even atheists come to me; even atheists agree with me. The atheist has no quarrel with me because I speak the atheist’s language. But that is a net. That language is a net. It’s like when we go to catch fish, we put dough on…
Yesterday you said don't allow the elephant driver's hook of the intellect to ride over the feelings of the heart. But Osho I find your discourses absolutely logical. Is the mind nourished by the enjoyment of argument? Is it not a danger for me that the argument-nurtured mind will take control of the heart and suppress the experience of feelings? Please show me the path.
What I am saying is certainly logical, but not just logical -- something more too. I speak logically for you, and something more is for me. If I do not speak logically you won't be able to understand. And if I do not say that which is beyond logic, I would not speak at all: what would be the use of speaking? When I am talking, speaking to you two are present: you and I. There is both a speaker and a listener. If it was up to me I would speak In transcendence of logic, I would completely drop arguments, but then you would think I am insane. Then you wouldn't understand anything, you would feel it is just noise with no meaning. I speak logically to fit with your pattern of logical thinking. But if this is all you understand, then your visit here has been useless. It…
Is there an intellectual path to enlightenment?
For example, if you start seeing through the ears then you will stumble upon only sounds. You will not come to see flowers and colors and rainbows and the sun and the moon and the stars. And sooner or later you will conclude that only sounds exist, there are no flowers and there are no colors. Logic has given science. Love has given the so-called religions -- the religions of yesterday, the religions which are no more relevant. They were as partial as science. That's why there was so much conflict between science and religion -- that conflict was not accidental. The conflict was of methodology. Religion was basically emotional, of feeling. Logic was denied, reason was prohibited. Tears were okay, prayers were okay, but no intellect. The intellect was the enemy. So when science started growing, it was natural that the church and the religious people would be in…
A friend has asked: Osho, in the very first stage of meditation I feel completely exhausted within a minute or two.
No, you don’t actually get tired; the thought of being tired arises. The thought of tiredness is a big thing. When you feel, “I’m utterly exhausted,” if at that very moment someone were to come after you with a gun, threatening to kill you, you would discover you’re not tired at all. You’d run for miles, and the fatigue would vanish. What happened? You were tired, weren’t you? Someone is chasing you with a gun—how are you running now? In truth, we have no idea how much power lies within us. We live using only the small amount of energy that floats on the surface. When that little portion gets a bit weary, we conclude, “Now I’m tired; that’s the end of it.” The moment you feel fatigue, begin again with even more intensity. Within two minutes you will find the tiredness has disappeared and a great energy has surged…